From Book to Table: Cookbook Musings from Edward (August 2021 Edition)

How I love Jenny Rosenstrach! Her website Dinner: A Love Story is such a great read. Her tagline on the site: “it all begins at the family table” says it all. Her books are written for busy families and home cooks looking to save time without sacrificing flavor. Her first cookbook, Dinner: A Love Story is the perfect marriage of these ideas. Now comes The Weekday Vegetarians from her publisher, Clarkson Potter. What a great concept! Bring veggies into your meal plan during the week and meat dishes for the weekend. Many people want to make vegetables the hero of their dish and may even aspire to semi-vegetarianism but often fall into an “all or nothing” approach. You don’t have to fully commit to being a vegetarian. Just try it for five days a week (or less) and then make your meat dishes on the weekend. A reasonable approach that will yield health benefits, for sure. I love her suggestions of combining different recipes, how to “veganize” them and what to do for the meat lover “hold out.” But, to me, the coolest thing in this book is the “mix and match meal chart” that helps you come up with a dinner plan. What will she think up next?! Love her! (I already said that.) Find it in our stores on August 31st. 
 

You may be aware of the hot trend of “platters and boards” — cookbooks featuring party nibbles and appetizers of all kinds that are served on, well, platters and boards. A key component of any good platters and boards presentation is the versatile hunk of cheese, offering an appealing meatless option for grazers and a great item to match with the wine in your hand. Cheese, Illustrated by Rory Stamp, with delightful illustrations by Holly Exley, is another excellent gift book by Chronicle Books. (They are a great publisher of illustrated books and know how to pair family, food and fun — the three f’s — in all they do.) What I love most about Cheese, Illustrated is the design. Yes, there’s great content, but I love the size — a 6×6 inch square — which feels gifty, the edges of the pages colored in red, and various tinting throughout. It’s such a cute book for a cheese lover. Each spread features a cool illustration of the cheese (thanks, Holly!), the cheese name and official origin, the type of milk, style and texture, as well as pairing ideas. There are other facts about each cheese that form a single paragraph — more than enough to get you started! Best of all, you don’t need a whole lot of cheddar to buy it! Grab a copy on August 10th.   
 

Who doesn’t like a sheet cake? There was a moment in time when the words “sheet cake” would send people running for the door. The idea brought to mind a rectangular slab of 80% vanilla frosting and 20% cake. Not any more! Like the humble bundt cake, these staples of everyday gatherings have become fashionable, again! (And if they never left your cake-making rotation, you get a virtual high-five from me.) Sheet Cake by Abigail Johnson Dodge, and scrumptiously published by Clarkson Potter, is the perfect book for gatherings and for every day. Abby Dodge knows her stuff. She received awards for her classic, The Everyday Baker, and basically loves cake making. In Sheet Cake, you get them all: classic, stacked and rolled cakes to go along with some really interesting ideas to put on top of your creations, or inside them. Nothing too plain in this book! My eyes drifted immediately to two faves: cinnamon buns and cheese cakes. The former is doing heavy work in a swirl cake and the latter employs a pretzel crust for that salty-sweet combo that always works for me. I’d gladly settle for either on my birthday. (Just sayin’.) While I never made a roll before, seeing the chocolate-peanut butter one is all I need to give it a go. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to add “soaks” to my cake-making repertoire. Try a few on your friends or better yet, make a few for yourself — you know, to test them out. Out of the oven and into your hands on August 17th.  
 

Salma Hage is a treasure. The Lebanese grandma and eldest of a dozen children learned how to cook from her grandmother, as so many of us have. She’s the author of several cookbooks, most notably The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook, which won a James Beard Award. Here at Barnes & Noble, we’ve seen plenty of Middle Eastern cookbooks being published — some with great fanfare and sales. It isn’t often when one for desserts pops up on my radar like Middle Eastern Sweets, gorgeously published by Phaidon Press. If you don’t know anything about Phaidon, they are the creators of elegant books on art, design, photography, cookbooks and more. They spare no expense in producing books that are useful, durable and most of all, beautiful. When you open up Middle Eastern Sweets, you immediately notice the weight of the book, an indication of the quality of the cover and the paper within. As you turn the pages, you’ll find lush food photography you can almost taste. Salma Hage loves to bake, obviously, and is a modest person. While I longed for more stories from her, she sprinkles her remembrances with purpose and affection. Clearly the recipes are what counts! I can’t wait to try Stretchy Ice Cream. (Read it to believe it!) As a big fan of cardamom, I can assure you the Cardamom & Saffron Cake is worth the price of the book alone. (She calls it a “showstopper” and she’s right!) After you bake from this book, I wouldn’t be surprised if orange blossom water or rose water make their way into your pantry. Available on August 18th.  
 

What gives me great pleasure is to talk about cookbooks from publishing houses you may not be familiar with. Year after year we see amazing offerings from small publishers, tucked away in various regions of the country, without the budgets or marketing dollars to publicize their books. Some of them are truly regional and sell in certain pockets of the country. Others are wonderful books that could sell everywhere if only they had a chance to be seen. The Good Berry Cookbook by Tashia Hart is a little bit of both. It’s published by Minnesota Historical Society Press (MNHS), one of my all-time favorite regional publishers. Here’s a publisher that has its finger on the pulse of all things Minnesota. When I saw The Good Berry Cookbook, I said to myself: YES! A chance to talk about this wonderful cookbook while giving some love to MNHS. Tashia Hart is Red Lake Anishinaabe and is a writer and illustrator. What makes The Good Berry Cookbook special is the narrative, which tells the story of an Indigenous Anishinaabeg family as they harvest and cook manoomin or wild rice through the seasons. The Anishinaabeg were drawn to the Great Lakes region because of the wild rice or “good berry.” The special relationship with the water and the rice is something Minnesotans are proud of. Tashia Hart sees it as an important cultural story to tell about our connection to the land that yields so many good things. It’s an origin story with more than 75 delectable recipes! On sale August 31st.
Can’t wait to show you some gems for September! Edward / eash-milby@bn.com

 
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